Watford Fc - A Deeply Rotten, Toxic Club

Discuss.

 

Nothing to discuss, you've covered it.

 

Sold our soul for some time at the top table, simple equation really.

I compare it loosely to being a recording artist who decides to make pop hits of whatever the in sound is at the time, a few singles will sell millions and chart, but in doing so they sacrifice having that classic album, never really establishing an identity, get any critical acclaim and don't ever build a solid, core fanbase.

 

It’s all Deeney’s fault.

 

The Pozzos have taken something I love and turned it into something repulsive. Rancid culture. Constant dealings with an individual who is accused of corruption by the authorities. Players treated as commodities who simply don’t care. Zero interest in youth development. Opaque dealings with Udinese.

I can’t stand my club now. And I despise the owners for what they have done to it. I’m close to jacking it in now. Maybe I can find a small lower league club to enthuse over but I don’t think you can really feel passionately about two clubs in a lifetime.

Shame on them.

 

Don't forget media play like the Sissoko message and the GT memorial - all plays well until it doesn't and you realise it's pure ********.

This club treats us fans with complete and utter contempt. **** this club.

 

I said to someone tonight, he had to go because he was nowhere near good enough any more and in himself had become a toxic element at the club - and it was still absolutely the right decision - but we've lost what he was in the past, as someone who actually gave a **** about Watford. This squad now is a squad full of pure mercenaries, not a single player gives the slightest **** about this club or our fans.

 

I think what’s worse is the fans they’ve taken with them. They’ve made actual Watford fans think that things like a good youth academy isn’t worth it. That buying players from distant leagues who benchsit are wonderful signings. That selling players that care like Will Hughes was a good thing. That upsetting national teams and not releasing players for a major tournament is a hilarious win. That dealing with dodgy agents is a thing that ‘the original family club’ should do. Treating legends of the club like Luther Blissett with distain is fine. They’ve insidiously eroded any care that the majority have for the overall path of the club.

 

I mentioned in another thread, I went to Maidstone United the other week and it was the most fun I've had at football in years. I'm going again Tuesday and I'm looking forward to it far more than I was tonight.

Obviously you can never really switch the allegiance or passion for a club, but it's a ******* damning example of how our owners are pushing people to feel about this football club.

 

The easier question is who at the club don't you hate? Sissoko, Pedro, and Cucho seem to be the only players with any willingness to fight. Sissoko is limited and ****s the tap-ins but he is always at least somewhere getting involved so I will cut him some slack. Cucho and Pedro you can at least see throw their head at a loose ball. Holding judgement on the personalities of the new players. The rest I can't stand.

 

Sadly, I have to agree with you on every point you make.

 

For sure. We have a sizeable minority of dreadful fans now, more invested in Pozzo than the great club we once had.

 

King seems inoffensive. Too early to judge the new guys I guess. And Cathcart, Troost, Cleverly and Sema try hard despite being poor players I suppose. Maybe Sierralta as well.

 

King I'll include too for his rage and not receiving a pass today. At least he has some passion in him. Dennis who is possibly our best player is also the most selfish and I am starting to get the impression he is only interested in creating a highlight reel for himself. The back heel in the first half was as disgusting as his red.

 

If we went bust and disappeared, I'd stop following professional club football altogether. And in some ways it would be a relief, it's really not worth the expense and time but it's basically an addiction because of the highs that come along all too rarely these days.

 

**** Ranieri, **** Emmanuel Dennis, Ismaila Sarr, Josh King and Joao Pedro, not because of anything they've done wrong (though Dennis and King certainly did a lot wrong tonight!), but because they have us the falsest of hope that we could somehow stay up

 

We certianly have a noisy group invested in the Pozzos, their crys of "they saved us from extinction" being heard when ever anyone peeps above the parapet to just ask the question! A valid argument and one that no fan can deny, however their attempts to turn Watford into a commercial asset has been woefully executed, with poor decision making, constant negative media, court cases etc etc more often than not taking the limelight. So as Watford fans I feel we have a right to be exhausted from defending our club and asking questions about what we've become.

However having listened to TalkSport on the drive home, it was cathartic to hear many of the Watford callers who's views that perhaps the current model isn't working. So perhaps for the first time that support for the Pozzos is seriously at a point of going South with a greater majority than previously.

 

There was a moment in the second half where JP had the ball in a dangerous area, but instead of busting a gut to get into a position to be able to affect the play, King just leisurely walked back from his offside position and killed the momentum we had

 

They p***ed on the legacy of Taylor tonight . They are spineless scum taking money from the working man so they can buy another Ferrari . They do not care , we have to force the Pozzos out . There is little to no investment , there is zero plan . There is zero soul . Get Elton back

 

Did anyone actually expect any sort of success this season? Good one!

 

The previous time we were promoted at least the players made a good fist of it and had a reasonable season this bunch play as if half of them don’t give a monkeys and lurch from pay cheque to pay cheque!

 

It's a complete and utter shambles. Had more than 75% possession in the first half but didn't create enough chances. As another must win game is lost it's obvious we'll be going straight back down this season, probably with Burnley and the Carrot Crunchers.

 

Looking back, it's incredible we managed to stay in the top flight as long as we did, from this vantage point it just looks like the Pozzos are clueless when it comes to the Premier League

 

Problem is they treat the players as commodities and horse trade them, means players don’t have any affinity with the club because they know sooner or later they will be traded on!

 

Absolutely ashamed over tonight. Words fail me.

 

Well they are Italian and as the Mafia say...

"It's not personal it's just business"​

 

Hard to express how much this is reflected on the pitch at this point - utterly disjointed, uninterested, lacking in any passion or even professionalism, let alone spirit or fight.

It's genuinely a sort of pain to watch this group of entirely disparate individuals go through half the motions at best on the way to another embarrassing result, in exactly the same manner as they did the week before, and we collectively sink a little lower into the abyss each time.

Feels like an infection.

 

I don't think they were clueless when we first came into the Premier League it felt that we had a clear line of site of getting ourselves established/safe in the league - be that 17th or 13th.
I just think that when we got to the cup final and had arguably our best topflight season since the 80s there was a lot of patting on the back "haven't we done well" and "misson accomplished" rather than a real look at what do we want to do next? how are we going to do it? when will it be done by?
But clearly we didn't have an idea other than "lets be the best of the rest" which, when you break it down, is a real nothing phrase/a soundbite, with no wieght or planning behind it. I've worked for businesses who throw out phrases likes like this, which are great for chest pumping but when you leave the room and think about it you've got no idea or direction. As such for Watford we've found ourselves lurching from one mistake to the next, every decision reactionary trying to get an instant reaction where really a club like ours need short-medium-and long term planning in place.

 

I've had to come out of forum hibernation (new career in the NHS was starting to take off - haha what a great decision that was) to get this off my chest - imo the debacle that is this season so far isn't just down to one out of the two candidates primarily responsible (our seemingly hopeless owner or the current man in the hot seat taking charge of the team), but the combination of them both.

Claudio will get the blame and is almost certain to be sacked, and honestly I don't think anyone can argue with that. We've been dreadful under him except for a couple of games when there was no pressure on us to be expected to get anything. He's a lovely guy that should have never accepted the job.

But this club is in such a state now that even if Klopp/Pep/Tuchel etc inexplicably took over, keeping us in the PL would become one of the most impressive achievements on their CV - and that speaks volumes about how shambolic things have got here.

Pozzbury's player trading way of running things that worked briefly some years back but clearly needs a major overhaul now is constantly made to fail more spectacularly by bad head coach appointment after bad head coach appointment after bad head coach appointment etc etc.

We swing from the disciplinarian to the joker, the novice to the veteran, counter attack to slow build up and so on and so on. Is it any wonder things don't work for very long?

But Pozzbury won't ever accept any blame for the way things have gone on the pitch. You can be sure he'll have been sitting there tonight thinking the squad he's assembled is good enough to stay up, only for another head coach to let him down despite everyone being able to see what's wrong with it.

The neglect of the defence for years shows how stubborn he is, and at the time of typing our only central defender recruit this window has come from Udinese again, quelle surprise.

Nothing will change unless he changes the way he operates - but across his time here there's been no indication he ever will. So we'll appoint another head coach who will be given a lop-sided squad and players that don't fit his way of playing, things will go awry again and he'll be sacked, rinse and repeat.

The part that muddies the water is that his head coach appointments are pretty much all useless anyway so us fans end up calling for their dismissal which makes it appear to vindicate Pozzbury's decision to pull the plug.

It's almost like he's putting crap people in charge to deflect the blame away from his dire mismanagement of assembling a competent football team.

What's my point to this whinge? That I want the owner to sell up and let someone else have a go. I don't yearn for being a struggling team in the Championship because it's just as ***** as being crap in the PL, but for me it's got to the point now where I'd be happy to risk someone new coming in. Of course people probably aren't queuing up to buy Watford and the clappers will bring up Baz, yet inexplicably we were less of a laughing stock under him than we are now.

The shameful treatment of Luther and the deliberate neglect of the youth academy is enough reason alone to want this one trick pony out.

Times up Pozzbury. Thanks for the brief high points but you're now out of ideas and are tarnishing further the already trashed footballing reputation of the club with every additional mistake you make.

 

Fantastic post. Especially the part in bold. I hadn’t really considered it like that.